Abstract:
To maximise foraging opportunities while simultaneously avoiding predation, group-living animals can
obtain personal information on food availability and predation risk and/or rely on social information
provided by group members. Although mainly associated with low costs of information acquisition,
social information has the potential to be irrelevant or inaccurate. In this study we use playbacks of
individually distinct sentinel calming calls produced during sentinel behaviour, a form of coordinated
vigilance behaviour, to show that meerkats (Suricata suricatta) discriminate between social information
provided by different sentinels and adjust their personal vigilance behaviour according to the individual
that is played back. We found that foraging group members acquired the lowest amounts of personal
information when hearing social information provided by experienced individuals that act as sentinels
most often in their group and littermates. Our study shows that social information can be flexibly used
in the context of sentinel behaviour in order to optimize the trade-off between foraging and vigilance
behaviours dependent on discrimination among signallers. We also provide novel evidence that the
experience of sentinels rather than their age or dominance status is the main factor affecting the extent
to which individuals use social information.
